A conversation with an old acquaintance earlier this week sparked a series of meditations on some strangely connected topics. We were talking about the “lawlessness” of the internet, with its disjointed structure and relative lack of overriding governance. Hackers, thieves, and disreputable people roam the web, making it a modern day wild (wild) west. The two features that truly popularized the internet, porn and ripped music, reveal how lawlessness has characterized the internet phenomenon since its popular beginnings.
Yet, how long will this last? Is the wild wild web, just like its 19th century predecessor, an ephemeral phenomenon? Even now issues of government oversight and internet neutrality seem to hint at the solidifying trajectory of the web. Governments such as China, Iran and Singapore seek authoritarian control over how the internet is used, and by whom. At the same time in the US and other capitalist countries regional and national internet service providers are lobbying for more control over access and marketability of the web. While these two efforts might have divergent goals and motives, they essentially signal the effort to control and manipulate this heretofore relatively open space (notwithstanding the obvious inherent private, elitest nature of access that cannot escape noting). I believe that there is still amazing potential for the internet to evolve into a tool that continues to help inform, educate, and facilitate socio-political equality. However, I fear that there is also the very real threat that this wild frontier will be destroyed by an overbearing urge to control.
On a seemingly divergent note- but one that shares a similar theme- I recently finished Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, a revisionist historian’s (Dee Brown) look at the taming of the wild west from a Native American (or Native Indian, or just plain Indian, depending on who you are talking to) perspective. This book, first published in the 1970s, covers the American government’s conquest over the native peoples who originally inhabited this land. Proceeding both in chronological order and (roughly) by tribe, it is in essence the same story of greed-induced deceit, unimaginable cruelty, and devastating tragedy told in more than a dozen different contexts.
Putting aside the remarkably saddening picture the book paints of the interaction between whites and natives, an important lesson gleaned is the role socio-cultural perspective plays on interaction between different groups. In this story the idea of ownership and productivity play an incredibly important part in the conflict. These two pinnacles of capitalist idealogy serve as the backbone of misunderstanding between inhabitant and invader. From the native perspective, land was something that could not be bought or sold at any price. It did not belong to anyone in the sense that it could be bartered with or commodified. Inhabitants had a responsibility to the land, to ensure that it continued to sustain those who depended on it. This turned out to be a much more ecologically forward-looking perspective than that of the white settlers and government officials who came to dispossess these native inhabitants. What US government and white prospectors, farmers and merchants saw was the misuse of valuable natural resources by an ignorant group of people. Progress, the watchword of the 19th century industrialization era, dictated that land that wasn’t maximized for humans’ short-term benefits was ipso facto a waste. From the perspective of these Anglo invaders, the land’s bountiful resources were there to be exploited, and the land itself destined to be possessed, bought and sold.
Whites’ perspective on land and land use, along with their own greed for wealth, informed their opinions of the native tribes, who they saw as lazy, ignorant and undeserving of the land. The pressure to attain this land and properly utilize it necessitated the formulation of a doctrine, embodied in the 19th cenury idea of Manifest Destiny, which lent justification to the dispossession of Indian land by Anglos. The psychology needed to accompany these devastating and inhumane acts sprang from the differences in understanding of the relationship between civilization and nature. Hence, at the same time during which the worst of these atrocities were being committed by the US government, the development of the stereotype of Indian savagery also came into focus. This perspective can best be summed up in the words, later popularized, by US Army General Philip Sheriden to his Comanche prisoners: “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead” (Brown, 170. Interestingly, the idea of the “noble savage” only came about after this period when native tribes no longer posed any real threat and the memory of the “wild west” began to be romanticized by nostalgic whites).
The psychology of domination in the mid to late 19th century American West draws many similarities to imperial and colonial ideology exhibited by Europeans throughout much of the rest of the world at the same time. This was especially the case in Africa, where the conquest of the entire continent was taking place, and the introduction of Europeans and European culture was just beginning to impact indigenous tribes. In many ways, I believe Africa served as the European “wild west,” a vast expanse of “uninhabited” land, potentially rich in natural resources and needing only to be cleaned out and cleaned up. Religious conversion and salvation also played an important role in both conquests, and helped form the ideology of superiority needed to justify the conquest. Ultimately, the colonial psychology, much like the psychology of Manifest Destiny, eventually condoned incredible atrocity- today we would call it genocide- against native cultures, some of whom were driven to near extinction.
Looking back at the stories of 19th century imperial and colonial conquest helps bring perspective to today, where we continue to wrestle with issues of cross-cultural conflict. At the end of my diatribes I often ask myself where I fit into this picture. Am I working to deconstruct or perpetuate the present-day heirs of these ideologies, neo-imperialism and ethnocentrism? Does my well-intentioned belief in the positive power of technology and the internet merely mimic the well-intentioned beliefs of former religious and secular zealots who, through the imposition of their world views, destroyed the social and cultural fabric of many an unfortunate indigenous group? What am I doing but perpetuating Progress with a capital ‘P,’ facilitating the entry of previously unaffected people into a consumerist society, where their thoughts will be increasingly distorted by a degredated Euro/Ameri-centric capitalist frame. Do I want to perpetuate the tragedy of the American Indian, who have long exhibited the scars of forced assimilation and continue to be the foremost forgotten victims of American success? I believe there are some important differences, yet I acknowledge that there is a slippery slope when it comes to righting legacies of injustice in a modern world. Having a personal connection to the plight of the American Indian, and a significant interest in the search for post-colonial equality and justice, I find the crisscrossing of historical and sociological narratives that inform these situations distinctly interesting. Three different stories of wild frontiers- American, African and virtual- coalesce disjointedly in a disjointed world.
2 comments:
As Dee Brown points out, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” tells the story from the Native American perspective. In other words, it is no more valid than a history told only from the white settler perspective. However, the Native American tribes certainly worked from the principle that the land “did not belong to anyone.” They conducted incessant, genocidal warfare against one another before the arrival of the Europeans. The tribes migrated constantly as they used up or depleted natural resources. Strong tribes constantly pushed weaker tribes out of the best territory. The purpose of the warfare was to decimate or exterminate rival tribes and seize their land. As a result, the tribes tended to hate each other more than they did the whites, and tribes eagerly campaigned with whites against rival tribes. The notion that tribes occupied their “ancestral lands” since “time immemorial” is simply false. The Sioux, for example, arrived in the Black Hills of South Dakota around 1775, after it had been explored and claimed by the French. As they migrated from the Great Lakes area, the Sioux massacred 400 Arikara and Mandan men, women and children at a village near the Missouri. Arriving in the Black Hills, they pushed aside the Osage, Crow, Arapaho and Cheyenne.
Tribes that were strong enough to occupy the best land flourished, but most tribes led precarious existences. They were able to maintain their lifestyles because of high-mortality and low-productive rates. Some practiced infanticide (the Comanche kill all twin babies because they thought they were bad omens) and cannibalism. Since they had no horses but had to carry everything on their backs or on dog sleds, they abandoned their elderly. (One Sioux woman remembered that the coming of the horse mean they no longer had to lead the old behind to starve.) The Native Americans had relatively little impact on natural resources only because their numbers were relatively small. Still, they had to migrate constantly as they killed off the game. Land that would support thousands of white farmers and ranchers would support only a handful of Native American hunter gatherers.
Thanks for the comment (although I wish you had left some contact info). I certainly agree with you that the picture painted of Native Americans is often a romanticized notion of a "noble savage," one perfectly in tune with the balance of nature and honorable to a fault. Indeed, in reading Brown's book it was hard for me to get over the extreme one-sidedness of the stories. Clearly, we are getting only one perspective. As you imply, this is to be expected from a historical narrative. I would fault Brown more for this if I didn't understand the historical context the book itself was written in. The 60s and 70s were an important time for historians, with many new ideas coming out in opposition to previously entrenched notions. While nowhere near the most balanced text, Brown made an important contribution by challenging the standard interpretation of 19th century Native American history.
Setting aside the significant debate about historical context and perspective, I still find the story of the near extermination of Native Indians a sad and depressing one. The sheer extent of suppression, displacement, and in many cases extermination committed by the US government during this time is horrifying, especially since we as a country are so proud of our moral high ground and democratic ideals. I am ashamed that we found justification in our acts, and hope that we can learn from our previous mistakes.
As to some of you attempts to "level" the playing field, I appreciate the context but I think you often miss the point. Tribes certainly fought each other more than they fought whites, but I think your use of the term "genocide" is generally unfair. It definitely can't be put in the same category with the systematic atrocities committed by the US government. Your comments on land issues are the same in that they point to exceptions that neither discredit the "rule" (i.e. that tribes had more or a right to the land than whites), nor approach the level of wrongdoing by the US or its citizens.
While one could argue that your comments play the same contextualizing role as Brown's book- and certainly to some extent they do- victimizing history's victors does not serve the same purpose as presenting the stories of historical victims. I hope you intended your comments to provide balance and not, as they can be read, as an apology for acts committed by the US government and its citizens in the 19th century.
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